X Files Season Sets: Worth an Investment? (1 Viewer)

[stewart borland]

yes, yes, yes but only if you like the X-Files of course... and at the new low price it's a must.

 

[Walt Riarson]

So, I picked up Season 4 recently. Tried to play it on the DVD-rom of my computer at home, and all the episodes worked except for "Sanguinarium", which completely froze up around the 15 min mark. Tried it on the actual DVD player downstairs, pixelated and froze up around the same mark. Took it to my computer at work, and again it froze up around the 15 minute mark.

Anyone else have problems with this particular episode? Any other problem episodes in other sets through the series, that those of us who are just now picking up our first set may need to know about?

And lastly, is there any address that I can write to Fox about getting a replacement? Thanks again.

 

[Daniel Kikin]

I haven't watched mine in a couple of years but I don't recall having any problems, probably a bad disc.

 

[Jonathan_Clarke]

When I got Season 4 'Small Potatoes' broke up after a few minutes. It was a rare defective disc and Amazon replaced the set. No problems after that.

Oh, and I'm glad to see this thread come back!

 

[Walt Riarson]

Watched "Small Potatoes" tonight. Worked fine. But dang it, I wanna find out what happens after the "laser" scene in "Sanguinarium"!

 

[John McM]

I am holding off for one of these days when the sets will be dropped to $60 or so (this is Fox, not Paramount). FYE has season 1 USED for $84.99. I cannot afford such right now.

 

[John McM]

double post

 

[GuruAskew]

When you're dealing with a set that spans 60 discs (including the movie) you're likely to encounter a bad disc or two along the way. The final disc of my Season 3 wouldn't play at all and the first disc of Season 4 glitched on "Teliko" but I exchanged them both and the new discs worked fine. A disc in my Season 9 was also scratched but it wasn't a manufacturing defect, the hub broke and the disc was loose in the packaging. Once again, an exchange corrected the problem.

 

[Don Scott]

My season 6 episode "Tithonus" became pixelated for about 10 seconds near the end. Not a big deal, I didn't get it replaced because I had it for a long time before watching it and lost the receipt. That was the only problem I had in all 9 seasons.

 

[Jonathan_Clarke]

Don't knwo if this should be its own thread, but The Digital Bits http://www.thedigitalbits.com just reported the Lone Gunmen should be out in 2005!

 

[Mike Graham]

Rakesh.S wrote (post #33):


This was due to the fact that the series had the same cinematographer for seasons 1 - 3, while in season 4 he left the show.

 

[Bryan Ri]

I have to say, I'm through Season 7 and I loved probably 85% of the episodes. I think that David Duchovany would have been the perfect choice to play Robert Langdon in the Da Vinci Code, opposed to Hanks.

 

[Bryan Ri]

I'm now officially through the series. Season 8 had some real crap episodes, but also had it's share of brilliant moments as well. Season 9, more of the same. I was fairly satisfied with the finale.

 

[Paul_Stachniak]

I went up to 5 and ended with the movie. 6 had some alright episodes, and if the set ever dropps to 45 bucks (Canadian) like Season One did for a while, I'll get it - otherwise, after the movie the X Files stopped being the X Files.

(even season 5 was a strech)

 

[Jonathan_Clarke]

HUGE price drop on Season 1 lately!

When I bought Millennium Season 2 from Best Buy, they were offering X Files Season 1 for $50! Now Amazon has it for $34.99!

Possible that these are incentives like the famous $15 Amazon sale. or could it mean that another price drop is coming? Even $75 is a lot to ask for the later seasons.

 

[Chris Atkins]

I got Season 1 for my birthday back in November. I was a casual watcher of the X-Files for the first 6-7 seasons. I would watch it if it was on, but I never could watch it consistently.

Well, I love the series on DVD. I got season 2 for Xmas but I am not done with season 1 yet.

Amazon has season 1 for $35...by all means, snatch it up at this price.

 

[Patrick H.]

I recently was strolling through my local WalMart, looking for cheap windshield wipers, and I came across the DTS copy of the movie in a bargain bin for $5! Couldn't pass that one up! I hadn't even thought about the X-Files for, oh, probably two years, but as Mulder and Scully made their widescreen entrance about ten minutes in, it all came flooding back to me...

A good friend and I used to commiserate about this franchise, and the analogy I came up with was that the X-Files was like a romantic relationship that had such a spectacularly bitter, nasty breakup that it negated the entire experience. All the good memories and happy times (or spooky times, as it were) were overwhelmed by feelings of disappointment and betrayal, and you wanted to (figuratively) just delete all the e-mails and burn all the photos because the whole thing seemed so pointless in hindsight. There's no truth out there...just a bunch of bull!

However, seeing the movie again reminded me that, even if you now know the conspiracy arcs go nowhere, the prime years of the series still cruise along on the strength of the leads alone. Seriously, I'd watch Mulder and Scully balance a checkbook for an hour...they're tremendously appealing characters. The circular myth-arcs could've gone on forever, but when the show lost it's grip on those two (and I'm not saying the actors themselves weren't responsible for some of that), that's when it lost it's appeal I think.

I'd recommend any newbies stick to seasons 1-5 plus the movie, then let the rest of Mulder and Scully's adventures play out in your imagination...you'll probably cook up better things for them to do than the rest of the show did. I realize Robert Patrick has a lot of fans here, but I honestly never got to know him...they'd already lost me during season 7. If they bring Mulder and Scully back for a stand-alone movie, though, I'm there.

 

[TravisR]

I have been going through all the episodes of The X-Files again over the last few months and I have to say that I can understand that Season Seven was enough to lose anyone.

But now I'm up to Season Eight and I have to say that the show managed to get back to solid, scary episodes in S8. I love seeing episodes like this again since most of Season Six (which was very, very good) just seemed to be episodes where it was all a dream or comedies. And Season Seven was a mess (except for a few episodes) so the return to scary episodes was welcomed by me.

One thing that I can say about the series as a whole is that on the technical side, the show got better and better as it went along. The directing, cinematography, and editing were ALWAYS top notch but the show always managed to get better as it went along.

In the end though, I can definitely see Season Seven being the end for some fans

 

[Patrick H.]

Really, you have to wonder what was going on in peoples' minds when 'X-Cops' turned out to be a season highlight...

I too have noticed the DRAMATIC price drop on season 1 recently. For $40 at Best Buy I might just have to pick that sucker up too! (In the past the price on these things has always been a major deterrent...I can't rationalize spending more that $50 on a TV season.) Interestingly, for others looking for X-Files-on-a-budget, the files themselves are closed as the cliffhanger at the end of season 1. So...heh heh...discounting the following four years of conspiracies and character development, this DOES sort of dovetail into their situation at the start of the movie. The Lone Gunmen had made their appearance by this point, although I can't quite remember how involved AD Skinner's role was. The movie was deliberately designed to be so vague about the series' details, though, that the only things you'd probably be wondering about are the Well-Manicured Man and why Scully looks so trim. The infamous "black oil" was also re-introduced/explained well enough in the film that you wouldn't be particularly in the dark (at least no more than usual).

 

[RossMan]